418.] If these sentiments, in perfect coincidence with the pretensions of France, and censuring the neutral course of the American government, were openly avowed by Mr.Jefferson; if, when they appeared embodied in a letter addressed to a correspondent in Europe, and republished throughout the United States, they remained, even after becoming the topic of universal interest and universal excitement, totally uncontradicted, who could suspect that any one sentence, particularly that avowing a sentiment so often expressed by the writer, had been interpolated?
Yet Mr.Jefferson, unmindful of these circumstances, after some acrimonious remarks on Colonel Pickering, has said,[72] "and even Judge Marshall makes history descend from its dignity, and the ermine from its sanctity, to exaggerate, to record, and to sanction this forgery." [Footnote 72: Vol.iv.p.

402.] The note itself will best demonstrate the inaccuracy of this commentary.

To this text an appeal is fearlessly made.
This unmerited invective is followed by an accusation not less extraordinary.

It is made a cause of crimination that the author has copied the remark of the Parisian editor, instead of the letter itself.
To remove this reproach, he will now insert the letter, not as published in Europe, and transferred from the French to the American papers, but as preserved and avowed by Mr.Jefferson, and given to the world by his grandson.

It is in these words.
"Monticello, April 24th, 1796.[73] "My Dear Friend, "The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left us.
In place of that noble love of liberty and republican government which carried us triumphantly through the war, an Anglican, monarchical, and aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance as it has already done the forms of the British government.